Dare to Love

by Penny Dixon

  ‘What are the rooms here like?’

  ‘Amazing!’

  ‘Stayed here?’

  ‘No.’

  I can tell she wondering if I stay here with some one. ‘I work on this project.’ I hope that put her mind at rest.

  ‘I’d love to spend a night here,’ she says, looking around.

  I’d love to spend a night here too but I can’t afford their prices. I change the subject by kissing her. There’s not many people in the bar and none of them facing us. We talk about the time I spend on the project. She interested in my work, or at least the work I used to do before this recession. She want to know more about my family, sister in America. I want to talk about her. I want to talk about us. I’m not used to drinking so early in the day and I don’t think she is either. I have another Hennessey and feel horny as hell. Her thighs feel like silk. I drink a couple glasses of water to sober up a little and she have another rum and coke. She wrap her leg over mine and bite my ear. She draw circles in my palm, it send a signal straight to my rod. I slide her hand over it.

  ‘See what you doing to me,’ I whisper.

  ‘So close to all those beds, and yet so far,’ she joke.

  I get up, go and pay the bill.

  ‘Leaving already? Don’t she like it here?’ Lou seem surprised.

  ‘We just need to be somewhere else. Thought we had more time.’

  I put my hand out to her, when she take it I pull her up.

  ‘Where’re we going?’ she giggle.

  ‘To find a bed.’

  She kick her sandals off at the door, getting use to it now. Her hands all over me, stroking my head, pulling off my T-shirt, taking off my belt. It’s like she can’t wait. She pull me to the bedroom, slide out of her clothes. By the time I come back with the condom she lying on the bed, open like a lotus.

  ‘Go easy, I’m a bit sore, you’re a big boy.’

  ‘I’ll be gentle baby. Trust me.’

  I show her I can be gentle. I take everything slow, like I’m enjoying every part of my Sunday dinner, her nipples, her neck, her belly. I lick her thighs, make her wait for my tongue in her cave, wait for it on her stalactite.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she say over and over. She hit my chest like she playing a bongo.

  ‘This gentle enough for you?’ I ask her as I slide into her darkness.

  ‘Oh my lover, you – are – perfect,’ she pants.

  It’s music to my ears.

  ‘You love it.’

  ‘I love it.’

  ‘You love me.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, Josi. I love you.’ I don’t know where that come from, but in a flash I know I mean it.

  ‘OH MY GOD!’ I shout with her as our waves crash.

  We wrap arms and legs round each other like a couple of pretzels and doze. Must be the alcohol but it’s nearly two o’clock when we wake up. She panicking because she have to meet her friend at three o’clock. I wish she didn’t have to go. This space is like her cave. A place for just the two of us. Oh shoot Grant! I remind myself. She married. You must be drunk.

  Grant

  After I drop her off I rush back home, open up all the windows and door and put the sheets in the washing machine. Mel probably thinking I’m turning into some kind of cleaning freak, but Josi’s scent in the sheets. If it was up to me I’d wrap myself in them but Mel might not see it that way. I put all Mel’s things back in place. This time I remember to take her flip flops out the wardrobe. I even sweep the floor in case any of her hair fall somewhere. I clean the shower and just putting Mel’s shower gel back in the rack when my phone ring. It’s Roxanne. I debate whether to answer it but I blank the last three calls.

  ‘Hey sis, how’s it going?’

  ‘Grant you make a decision yet? I was talking to Sophia…’

  ‘How you doing Grant? I’m OK thanks Roxanne,’ I interrupt her.

  ‘I know you OK. What I want to know is what to tell Sophia.’

  ‘Tell her the same thing you tell her last time. I’m still making up my mind.’

  ‘Grant?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘Grant is it true you working for Sammy?’

  ‘What! Why you asking me that?’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Roxanne, who you been talking to?’

  ‘Never mind that. Is it true Grant? I can’t believe you would be so stupid, can’t believe you would put yourself and Darron at such risk. That’s why I want you to come out here Grant. I don’t want you getting mixed up with the likes of Sammy, but no, you too stubborn. What you waiting…’

  ‘I’m not working for Sammy.’ I have to shout to shut her up while I wrack my brain to think who tell her.

  ‘Then why would people say you are?’

  ‘Which people?’

  ‘It don’t really matter who. The fact is people think you involved with Sammy. You want to stop that right now.’

  ‘Just back off will you Roxy. I don’t have time to talk now.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I’ll Skype you later.’

  ‘I’m going out in an hour.’

  ‘Tomorrow then.’

  I click off. She irritating me. Trying to run my life since this recession, using it to get me to the States. She have no right to interfere. I was going to ask her to lend me some more money but in this mood she only going to put pressure on me to marry Sophia. I can’t deal with that now. My phone ring again. Bet it’s her, can’t wait till later. It’s Jeanette. Marcie having a bad crisis. She sound hysterical. Ask me if I can come over to help her with Marcie. She frightened because she don’t want Marcie to die.

  I try to calm her down, tell her Marcie going to be all right.

  ‘How you know? You all the way over there, you can’t see how bad she look. Grant, I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You have to stay calm Jeanette. Shouting at me not going to help her, or you.’ I feel the knot tightening in my stomach. I don’t know if Marcie going to be all right but I can’t afford to think any other way.

  ‘Don’t tell me to keep calm. If you could see her you wouldn’t be calm. Grant, she in so much pain. And what’s worse, she keep asking for you, as if you could make the pain better.’ She sound resentful, like she hope Marcie would forget about me like she trying to.

  ‘What you mean?’ I know it’s a useless question but that’s how I feel. I don’t even know if Jeanette doing this to make me feel bad. I don’t know what Marcie going through. Been so wrapped up in Josi and Darron and getting money that I don’t even do any real research on the condition.

  ‘I wouldn’t ask this if I didn’t think it would help Grant, but will you come over and see her? Maybe it could help.’ I know it take a lot for her to ask me that because I know she want me out of her life.

  ‘I’ll try Jeanette. Can I talk to her?’

  ‘I’ll see if she can talk.’

  I hear Jeanette’s muffled voice before a tiny weak one say, ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Yes baby it’s me. How’s my girl?’

  ‘When you coming home Daddy?’

  ‘I don’t know Princess. Tell Daddy where it hurts baby.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know? Is it your leg?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anywhere else.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where baby?’

  ‘Everywhere,’ she sound out of breath, like she been running. ‘When you coming home Daddy?’

  ‘Soon as I can.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No not now, but soon.’

  No reply.

  ‘You still there Princess?’

  ‘She’s too tired to keep talking,’ Jeanette says. ‘So when can you come Grant? You see what I’m living with?’

  ‘You know what my finances are like Jeanette, I don’t have the money.’

  ‘I bet if it was Darron you
would find the money.’ She don’t hold back on the bitterness.

  ‘We’ve been over this a thousand times Jeanette. I don’t favour Darron over Marcie. I don’t love him any more than…’

  ‘Then come and see her. She need her father now.’

  I don’t want a fight. When Jeanette in this mood she can go for hours. She don’t let anything go, can remember every little thing I ever did wrong and all the ones she make up that I can’t even remember but give into for a quiet life. She headstrong. That’s what attract me to her but after a while it wear me down. She always have to be right, always have the last word, and even though I don’t want to admit it she right about this one. My daughter need me, and I can’t get to her.

  ‘Tell Marcie I love her.’

  ‘Come and tell her yourself.’

  I’m angry as hell. Press the redial button. Before it ring I press it off. No point shouting at Jeanette. I don’t like her style but this time she right. My daughter need me. I have to find a way to get to her.

  I’m looking at the blank screen wondering what to do, when it ring. It’s Sammy. He have a neat little job for me. Won’t take long. Around eight o’clock tonight. I ask him how much.

  ‘The same as usual.’

  ‘You have anything paying a little more?’

  ‘You mean a little more or a lot more?’

  ‘I need enough for a plane ticket home.’

  ‘Let me call you back.’

  Five minutes later he’s back.

  ‘OK, come down by the harbour at eight fifty tonight.’ He give me very specific instructions on where to wait and who to look out for. It’s not heavy goods. I just need to take it from the guy and drive to the supermarket. When I’m in the car park call him.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Play this safe and you’ll have your plane ticket.’

  ‘I don’t mean one way. I need a return ticket.’

  ‘Become one of the team and we’ll make sure you can go home whenever you want.’

  By the time I pick up Mel from work, I feel like somebody put a pressure hose in my head and turn it on full. Thank God she in a good mood. She talk about her day, how she finally master a procedure, how if she keep up her level of progress she might be looking at a pay rise in a few months time. We stop at the supermarket to pick up food for dinner. It’s the same supermarket I’m coming back to tonight. There’ll be less cars later, easier to spot mine. Harder to hide.

  Is only on the way home from the supermarket she ask me what I do with my day. I tell her about the phone call from Jeanette. About Marcie going into crisis.

  ‘What’s that?’ she ask and I’m ashamed that I don’t know.

  ‘She’s in a lot of pain and she sound weak.’ I tell her I need to do some research when I get home. She say she’ll cook. I don’t tell her about the other things Jeanette say.

  There’s a lot of sites with information about sickle cell crisis. The more I read, the guiltier I feel. Why didn’t I look this up as soon as Jeanette tell me. Yes I send her the money for the tests, even resent it a little because it put me back in a position I was just getting out of, but I know I was doing it for my girl.

  ‘What’s the matter babes?’ Mel kiss the top of my head and slide her arms over my shoulders. She can be very caring and right now I’m grateful.

  ‘You know anything about sickle cell?’

  ‘No. Just that people who have it spend a lot of time sitting down, and sometimes their hands and feet swell up. Is that what’s happening to Marcie?’

  She read some of the stuff on the screen. I’m looking at the page with symptoms and feeling sick. Anaemia, inflammation of the lungs, painful swelling of hands and feet, fever, increased risk of bacterial infection, enlarged spleen, stroke. Painful crisis can occur in any part of the body and may be caused by cold or dehydration. Pain may last a few hours or up to two weeks plus. This sentence leap out at me. Maybe Jeanette don’t give her enough water, don’t keep her warm enough. It says you have to keep a close eye on children with sickle cell. Maybe Jeanette not looking after her properly. If she in pain for such a long time she might even need hospital. I need to go and see her.

  ‘How she get it?’ Mel can’t see the “causes” page. I scroll back so she can read it and head for the fridge. I need a drink. I knock back a big shot of Hennessey. The ice hardly touch it. When I get back she look at me confused.

  ‘So, do you have sickle cell?’

  ‘Either that or Marcie is a jacket.’ I know even as the words leave my mouth that the child is the image of me. Everybody say so. She have my eyebrows, my forehead, my nose. She have her mother’s big eyes and her mouth but even the shape of her face is me.

  She just asked the question that going round in my head. If she get one defective gene from each parent then she must have one from me. But nobody in my family have sickle cell. Darron and Derrick don’t have it. Jeanette never mention that anybody in her family have it. I feel numb. What kind of father poison his daughter’s blood and can’t even be there to comfort her when she in pain.

  I feel useless. I can’t do anything right, everything going against me. I pour another Hennesey and sit down to look at the pages on treatment.

  The only cure is a bone marrow transplant from a “matched” donor. God knows I’d give her my bone marrow if it would stop the pain, but she get the disease from me in the first place… who could be a “matched” donor? She might need a blood transfusion, but maybe my blood won’t be any good. Full immunisation may reduce complications. I leave all that to Jeanette. I don’t even know if Marcie get all her vaccinations. There’s so much I don’t know. I don’t know these things about Derrick either. Maybe Jeanette’s right. Maybe I do favour Darron. But I had to do all those things for him. I know about him. Where is he? He should be home by now.

  ‘Did Darron say he going to be late home?’

  ‘No,’ Mel shout from the kitchen. ‘Dinner nearly ready.’

  I dial his number. It go to voicemail.

  ‘Darron, your dinner on the table and you’re not here.’

  I feel uneasy. Like something I eat earlier don’t settle. Maybe it’s the Hennessy.

  ‘You get him?’ Mel ask as she bring out the food. Fried chicken and noodles.

  ‘He’s not picking up. What if something happen to him?’

  ‘Maybe he just at his friend, revising again.’

  ‘He should tell me. This is why I can’t trust him.’

  ‘He’s not so late yet. He can microwave his dinner when he get back.’

  We eat in silence. I chew the food but I don’t taste it. I tell Mel it nice. She had a good day and now I’m spoiling it. I keep checking my phone even though it not on silent, not on vibrate and I would hear if it ring. Where’s Darron?

  He walk in as we’re finishing.

  ‘Where the hell you been?’ I shout at him as soon as he comes in. I see the same look flash across his face that I see the night I grab him up. I realise what I’m doing. In two steps I cross the room. I put my arms round his shoulders and hug him. At first he stand rigid with his arms by his side. Maybe he feel my love, maybe he feel my fear but after a while he hug me back.

  ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to me Daddy.’ For a second we change places. He’s reassuring me.

  Eight fifty. I’m waiting exactly where Sammy said to wait. It’s a quiet part of the street, hardly anybody going past. My heart beating fast. I’m taking deep breaths to try and slow it down. I know this isn’t a few boxes of booze but I need to see Marcie. Roxy would lend me the money but it comes with too many strings. What kind of man am I, taking from my sister, taking from Mel? How can somebody like Josi take me seriously? I haven’t even thought about her all this time.

  I’m supposed to take her dancing tomorrow night after she come back from some pageant with her friends. Something she don’t even invite me to. Maybe
she don’t think I’m good enough to mix with her friends. No money, no prospect. I need to step up my game for somebody like Josi but this is a one off for Sammy. It’s too risky. I’ll sort something else out when I come back from Guyana.

  A man walk toward the car. He’s about five foot eight and 150 pounds, light skinned with a round face. He’s wearing jeans, black trainers and a black T-shirt hanging outside his jeans. As he walk up to the car he look straight at me with his small mongoose eyes. I hold my breath waiting for him to open the passenger door and get in, or give me what he have, but he carry on moving without stopping. Can’t be him, must be somebody else. My phone ring. Make me jump. Make my heart thump.

  ‘Grant, Sammy. Open your passenger door slowly. There’s a little square parcel wrapped in black plastic. You see it?’

  I lean across the passenger seat and do as he says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Pick it up.’

  The parcel weighs about three pounds.

  ‘I have it.’

  ‘Take it to the supermarket. When you get there put it in the trash can under the big tree. Buzz me when you do it. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’ My mouth’s dry, my palms wet but I follow his instructions. I’m glad I don’t have to meet anybody.

  There’s about a dozen vehicles in the car park, none near the tree and trash can. I find some Kleenex in the glove box. I pull up slowly by the tree. Everything feel like it in slow motion. I wind the window down, drop the parcel in the can, wipe my hands and throw the Kleenex in the can too. If anybody watching they might think I just eat a takeaway and throwing away the rubbish. I wind up the window and drive away slowly. I wait till I’m out of the car park before I call Sammy.

  ‘Yeah. It in there.’

  ‘Good man. I’ll drop by tomorrow with your plane ticket money.’

  ‘No. I’ll meet you somewhere.’

  When I get in, Mel ask if the air conditioner in the car not working.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘You soaking wet.’

  She and Darron carry on watching the life of some celebrity while I take a shower and lie down on the bed. This morning and Josi seem like a long time ago.

  All night I toss and turn. Every time I fall asleep I dream about Marcie, in one dream she laughing and climbing on my shoulders, in another one she running to me on a dirt road. I hold my hands out to her but it don’t matter how long she running she can’t reach me. There’s one where she fall over. She holding her hands out to me and crying for me to pick her up. I try but she too heavy for me. It’s like I have no strength in my arms.